Beneath the mossed roof the small swallow-nests hang, And the bees hive and swarm in the eaves, And the loosed shutters swing with a sorrowful clang When the wind through the old church-yard grieves; Neglect and decay are around the old walls, Dark ruin looks over the scene, Oh, sad is the sound of the lone foot that falls, Round the Old Wooden Church on the Green. Yet I’d rather to-day they should crumble away, Earth’s proudest and loftiest pile, Built up as a mock for neglect and decay, To stand while the broad heavens smile— Than tear off one shred from its moss-eaten roof, Or call it the shabby and mean, For we’re all, when grown old and neglected enough Like the Old Wooden Church on the Green. And I hear the sweet voices that chanted within, Oh! many a summer ago, Still chanting the hymn when the eve closes in, Though they echo from heaven, I know; And I sit in the pew where they sat by my side, And as back in the shadows I lean, I hear the low prayers that echoed and died In the Old Wooden Church on the Green. I will weep when it falls, I will smile while it stands, As winter on winter goes by, Protected by naught but invisible hands, Till I sleep in its shade when I die; Let them bury me there in a mound poor and low, When the blast of the winter is keen, That the winds that wail over me pass as they go The Old Wooden Church on the Green. * * * * * [Illustration: OPERA EXTRAVAGANCE. Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine.] * * * * * MY FIRST LOVE; OR THE NIGHT-KEY.[1] BY MRS. E. F. ELLET. ----- [1] Herlotzsohn, in his Experiences, relates a story similar to the following. ----- Although a stricken bachelor, I cannot speak without emotion of my first love. An eastern philosopher says—it is with first love as with a first cigar; one precipitates himself upon it, luxuriates to the utmost in the draught, and when it is over, is sensible of a melancholy unlike that induced by any other loss. I suppose I may consider myself particularly fortunate, having felt no reaction after my first cigar, and finding equally harmless consequences from my first love. I do not mean to say that I was so happy as to find the passion returned; ah, no! for then—I should have been a Benedict. I mean that I imbibed all of bliss which belongs to the feeling, without hazarding the loss of my peace; I enjoyed it while it was permitted to last, with but a few trifling drawbacks, and that without stirring a fountain of remorse or regret to sprinkle with bitterness my future years.